A comparative empirical study on common methods for measuring preferences

Literature and practice reveal that most marketing related questionnaires measuring consumer preferences rely on some kind of conjoint analysis. Recent studies show that the analytic hierarchy process is suitable for this task, too. This paper gives a comparison of the approaches and the results of former studies. Because we found considerable differences in those results, an additional study has been performed being designed such that it has the potential to explain these differences. As we found respective explanations, we finally derive general guidelines on the selection of conjoint analysis and analytic hierarchy process depending on the complexity of the decision problem and the previous knowledge respondents have in preference measurement.